TV News LIES

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly directed a desktop computer in his Pentagon office be installed with the messaging app Signal, adding another layer to the controversy around his use of the encrypted messaging app, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

Hegseth earlier this year effectively “cloned” the Signal app on his personal cellphone to his computer as a way to get around blocks on the messaging app in classified areas, and to message people outside the Pentagon, The Washington Post first reported. Personal cell phones and electronics are not allowed in classified areas of the Pentagon.

The Defense Department will resume providing gender-affirming care for service members, a blow to the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate transgender individuals from the U.S. military.

A Pentagon memo dated Monday and revealed Thursday states the department will restore surgical procedures and cross-sex hormone therapy to individuals, including dependents of troops, as first reported by Politico.

“Service members and all other covered beneficiaries 19 years of age or older may receive appropriate care for their diagnosis of [gender dysphoria], including mental health care and counseling and newly initiated or ongoing cross-sex hormone therapy,” according to the memo, signed by Stephen Ferrara, acting assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs. “Service members may also receive voice therapy and appropriate surgical procedures.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

The directive comes after two federal judges last month blocked the Pentagon’s transgender service member ban and a third temporarily blocked the military from separating two transgender Air Force members in a more limited ruling,

More...

More...

President Donald Trump's company, the Trump Organization, has parted ways with a prominent conservative attorney who is also representing Harvard University in the school's legal clash with the Trump administration.

Trump's son Eric Trump, who leads the Trump organization alongside Donald Trump Jr., confirmed the dismissal of William Burck as an outside legal adviser after Trump launched a blistering attack on Harvard in an April 24 post on Truth Social that called for his sons to "get rid of him ASAP!"

A federal judge on Thursday blocked parts of President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to impose new rules on U.S. elections, which Democrats and other groups said risked denying eligible citizens the right to vote.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the Trump administration cannot enforce parts of the order requiring federal election officials to assess whether people who are registering to vote are citizens.

She declined, however, to block parts of the order that sought to force states not to count mail-in ballots received after election day.

The ruling came in response to lawsuits by groups including the Democratic National Committee, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the League of Women's Education Fund.

More...

 

Joe Kasper is out as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff, the fourth top official to be fired or reassigned in the last week amid political turmoil at the Pentagon.Kasper will continue to work on special projects at the Pentagon, according to a Defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The unrest at the pinnacle of the military’s leadership is highly unusual. Hegseth has been the focus of a Pentagon Inspector General’s review of his handling of sensitive military information via the commercial app Signal.Kasper, who worked in the first Trump administration, had previously been chief of staff to Rep. Duncan Hunter, Jr. Hunter had been convicted of misusing campaign funds and was later pardoned by Trump.

Kasper was sworn in as Hegseth’s chief of staff in late January. In early April, he touted the deportation of alleged Venezuelan and MS-13 gang members to El Salvador as a “successful counterterrorism mission.”

More...

China canceled 12,000 metric tons of United States pork shipments amid a high-stakes trade standoff between the superpowers, according to data released Thursday.

China, one of the biggest U.S. trading partners, axed 12,000 metric tons of U.S. pork orders, the data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows.

The move represents the biggest cancellation of pork orders since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains and stalled economies around the world, Bloomberg News reported.